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Tensions escalated sharply from 2009, when Uyghurs participating in ethnic riots killed around 200 Han in Urumqi, the regional capital, after earlier tensions and violence. Chinese security forces have started a radical crackdown. Attacks and other crackdowns took place in Uyghur towns in the years that followed, as well as in some towns outside of Xinjiang.
Since 2017, Xinjiang leaders under pressure from Xi have initiated or intensified policies aimed at turning Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other ethnic minorities into loyal and largely secular supporters of the Communist Party. According to the determination of the State Department, the Chinese government had committed “crimes against humanity” since “at least March 2017”.
Security forces have sent hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and Kazakhs – perhaps a million or more by some estimates – to indoctrination camps designed to instill loyalty to the party and break membership in the ‘Islam. The Chinese government defended the camps as benign vocational schools and challenged estimates of the number of detainees, never giving its own. Former detainees and their families who left China described harsh living conditions, crude indoctrination and abusive guards.
The swelling of the camps has drawn growing international condemnation, especially from human rights experts who advise the UN as well as the United States and other countries. Journalists and academics began writing about the camps and a sophisticated, high-tech surveillance system in Xinjiang in 2017, long before foreign governments began discussing the matter.
The indoctrination camps, however, were only part of the larger campaign of the Chinese Communist Party to radically transform Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other ethnic minorities. Other measures include labor transfers, educational and cultural policies, and population control.
Under Xi’s leadership, Xinjiang expanded and intensified long-standing programs to move Uyghurs and Kazakhs from rural areas to jobs in factories, cities, and commercial agriculture. The Chinese government has stated that these labor transfers are completely voluntary and bring prosperity to poor people. But some programs have set targets for the number of people relocated to work and have prevented recruits from choosing or leaving their jobs – hallmarks of forced labor.
Schools have largely abandoned classes in Uyghur, pushing students to learn Chinese. Uyghur academics who sought to preserve and promote their culture have been arrested and publication in the Uyghur language has been severely restricted. Authorities forced children into boarding schools, separated from their parents.
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